


Half Glory

by sinuous_curve



Category: Fantastic Four (Movieverse)
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-08
Updated: 2012-08-08
Packaged: 2017-11-11 16:37:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinuous_curve/pseuds/sinuous_curve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Johnny looks up at him from his knees, hands clasped behind his back so tight he can feel how bloodless his knuckles have gone. Ben’s hand is cool and solid and unyielding. Johnny swallows hard, and doesn’t say anything. Then, “I’m Johnny fucking Storm,” after a beat of silence. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half Glory

**Author's Note:**

> Written at the behest of and beta'd by dancinbutterfly. Please see end notes for additional content bits.

“You know what you are, right?” Ben says, hand curled around Johnny’s chin.

Johnny looks up at him from his knees, hands clasped behind his back so tight he can feel how bloodless his knuckles have gone. Ben’s hand is cool and solid and unyielding. Johnny swallows hard, and doesn’t say anything. Then, “I’m Johnny fucking Storm,” after a beat of silence.

Ben lifts his brow. “You’re a piece of twink ass, kid.”

“I’m a superhero,” Johnny says, the words spilling out sharp edged and brittle at the same time. He shifts on his knees, and Ben’s hand tightens.

“You are the brother of a hero,” Ben corrects. “You, kid, are a puissant little fuck with a motorcycle. You're flash and bullshit and you know it. Bright light doesn’t mean people can’t see what you are, kid. And what you’re not.”

Johnny can feel his heart thundering in his chest. “They don’t know anything about me.”

Ben snorts. “They know everything about you. There’s not that much to you, kid. You’re easy, and you’re boring, and you always have been. Just a worthless pretty face that was in the right place when something important happened to people who really matter.”

Ben’s hide, his exoskeleton or whatever scientific bullshit Reed’s taken to calling it this week, looks fiery in the low light. The brightness of it sometimes veers into cartoony in bright sunlight -- like orange fucking rocks from a movie set glued to Ben’s skin. But not like this. He looks a little on fire standing in front of Johnny. Tall and broad. Big. Right.

“I’m on the team-” Johnny begins.

“Because we feel sorry for you,” Ben cuts him off, snorting. “Because your sister is bleeding heart for fuck-ups, and Reed doesn’t want to deal with the bullshit and temper tantrum you’d throw. Just like a whining little kid, _kid_. So they let you think you matter and add something. Like you’re not just a liability.”

Johnny can feel the stupid goddamn burn behind his eyes, and he won’t. He _will not_ cry in front of Ben.

“I mean, really,” Ben says, crouching down. “Just fucking think about it, kid. Reed is useful. Sue is useful, and can protect people. And what are you? You are goddamn destruction all the way down to your bones. Kid, you’re a fuck-up on a genetic level.”

“It doesn’t,” Johnny grunts. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“Says who?”

“Sue.”

Ben scoffs. “She lies to you because she knows you can’t deal with the truth. Please, kid, don’t lie to yourself.”

Johnny tries to shake his head, and can’t. Not with Ben’s hand on his jaw. His fingers are too big for the real world, but not for this. Ben is oversized, except in the moments when size is irrelevant and it’s just his strength. Strength matters.

“You know what people do with you, don’t you?” Ben asks.

Johnny squeezes his eyes shut. “Come and go,” he says.

“Chew you up and spit you out, because they know you’re not worth more than that,” Ben says. “A picture of a pretty, pointless face. A one night fuck to cross off on their lists. Why do you wake up alone, kid?” Ben’s fingers tighten and Johnny gasps out a soft noise. “Because you deserve it. Say it.”

Johnny tries to breath, and makes a noise that can only be called a sob.

Ben jerks his head up, drawing his throat into a tight, taut line. “Say it, Johnny.”

It’s his name that cracks something inside him. Johnny Storm -- not the Human Torch or the hundred names people have gasped at him in bed, real and fake and mistakes and nicknames. Johnny.

“I deserve it,” Johnny says, closing his eyes. “Because I deserve it, Ben.”

“That’s right,” Ben says, and he laughs. “Jesus, kid. You really are pathetic.”

The thing in Johnny’s chest that spider-cracked at his name gives a little more. His breath comes in short, sharp jerks that hurt deep down inside his lungs and have nothing to do with oxygen. Ben’s hand is so unforgiving against his skin, and this what he gets. For asking for honesty.

“Are you gonna cry?” Ben asks. “Are you gonna beg me to stop, kid? You cried at basic, and everyone heard. That boy crying in his bunk, because he was a worthless, weak little fuck then. And you still are, kid. It doesn’t matter how bright you burn, you’re still just sucking up oxygen the rest of the world could use.

“You’re up on some damn cross,” Ben says, cocking his head. “No one gets how hard it is to be Johnny Storm, on his motorcycles and his superhero team. No one gets it, because no one cares. You know why? It's because if you disappeared tomorrow no one would care. If you ceased to exist, the world would move on. Hell, maybe it would be better.”

“Ben,” Johnny gasps. He can’t _breathe_.

“You’re a waste of time, kid,” Ben says, words picking up clip and losing their even cadence. It sounds to Johnny like a sudden untapped well of anger bubbling up. “You’ve never done anything for anyone, and at the end of the day all you do is burn and destroy and ruin. No one _wants_ you, Johnny. No one.” Ben’s voice cracks on the last word.

And that’s it. That’s the break.

This is Ben, who was the only one who ever stopped to ask if Johnny was okay.

The thing in Johnny’s chest that’s lived there for so long, breathing with his lungs and beating with his heart, gives. Turns to shards.

Johnny doesn’t cry. He hasn’t in years and this isn’t even really crying it’s outflow. It’s something bigger than his skin can hold and it feels like his ribs are going to crack. He’s never said any of it, to anyone. Ever. There’s no room to be the Human Torch and this at the same time. And no one cares more about him than the Torch.

Ben’s hand releases and Johnny drops down onto his elbows, back curved. He hooks his hands around his neck and makes himself small.

His heartbeat is a roar in his ears and a jackrabbit quick pound in his chest. His breath comes with hard contractions and releases. The urge to become nonexistent crawls across his skin, and god. He wants it, he does.

And then Ben’s hand lands gently between his shoulder blades. “Johnny?” Ben says, voice high and tight and scared. “Kiddo?”

Ben’s voice is the thing that cuts through it. Johnny still can’t breathe, still feels like his heart is going to come out of his chest. But it’s an anchor, and it means Ben is still there. He didn’t leave. Even when he was asking for it, Johnny expected Ben to hear and leave.

“Come here, Johnny,” Ben says, and then his hands are around Johnny’s ribs. Irrationally big hands, and strong. He could break Johnny’s ribs. He never would. “Yeah, kiddo. Come on. Come here.”

It’s somewhere between moving himself and being lifted. Johnny keeps his eyes closed as Ben maneuvers him into place. They’ve done this -- not this, but together in the dark -- a lot. Johnny knows the unyielding lines of Ben’s body better than his own, because God knows it’s easier to look at Ben than himself.

He settles on Ben’s lap, curled against Ben’s chest. He presses his hand to hard shell over Ben’s heart. The texture is familiar, and there. Ben didn’t go.

“I’ve got you, kid,” Ben says, enfolding Johnny in his arms. “I’m right here.”

Johnny loses track of time there, with Ben all around him. It’s the only place he ever feels like he can breathe. It was where he asked for this, running his mouth around the shape of something that scared him so bad he doesn’t know how to explain how he lived it. He’s Johnny Storm, he can’t do anything small.

And eventually, slowly, he settles.

Ben’s thumb scrapes over Johnny’s bare skin. His touch is careful. “You with me, kid?” he asks.

Johnny sort of expected to be irreparably broken, but he feels. Lighter. There, if nothing else. “Yeah,” he murmurs, tired deep down to his bones.

“That’s my boy,” Ben says, and Johnny can hear his smile. “You want to stay here, for a little bit?”

“Mm,” Johnny nods in assent. “Please.”

The silence stretches out again. Every now and Then Johnny’s breath hitches in his chest and his heartbeat will pick up and jitter in his throat and wrists again, but less and less. Against Ben’s solid bulk, Johnny breathes.

“Kid?” Ben says again, and the nickname is carefully spoken.

Johnny slits his eyes open and tips his head. “Yeah?”

“I know all that's what you think of yourself,” Ben says. His face is cast in shadows and crags in the darkness. Johnny still wants him, and needs him. “I understand why you needed this. But I have to--” he pauses, and breathes. “I want you, Johnny. You don’t always have to believe it, but I gotta know you know. I want you.”

It cuts in places Johnny doesn’t expect to hear that. Rubbed raw places. “Why?” he asks.

Ben looks down at him. “Because you trust me this part of you, kid. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t have done this for anyone else. I wouldn’t have tried.”

Johnny opens his mouth, because he always something to say. He should have something to say to that, and doesn’t and before he can apologize Ben’s thumb presses against his bottom lip. “It’s okay, kid,” Ben says, and his voice is low and warm. “I know. Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

**Author's Note:**

> This includes a moment where Ben implies Johnny would be better off dead in the context of verbal humiliation.


End file.
